I bet we had a better time than you

Two weeks in and nothing really has changed, I’m still living mostly inside my mind. I’m alone in the house this evening – I’m the only one here who doesn’t need interaction with other people, but it’s ok; she’s learnt to accept my hermetic tendencies and doesn’t take my refusals to attend social interactions as a personal slight. Which is good because they’re not. I floated around the idea that I might attend the monthly drinking event I used to be a regular at, she said it would be good for me to go. It’s happening tomorrow and every hour it gets closer I can think of more excuses why I shouldn’t go. See how I feel tomorrow, eh?

I’ve sort of fallen back into to my old ways as a vegetarianism Not by any great conscious effort – I still don’t have any moral objection, it just seems to have ended up that way after Christmas. I also haven’t drunk booze since then. I’m another stone lighter. I guess that’s my body’s way of telling me that I wasn’t cut out for steak and gin.

All this may sound quite like i’m quite sad and down but to be honest most days I’m feeling pretty good- free almost. It’s only the occasional nagging thought that I should be doing something ‘constructive’ ( ie getting paid) with my time rather than flitting though just doing as I please, learning what takes my fancy, that brings me down. I realise how much of my ‘constructive’ time as an employee was just really a complete waste, both for me and whomever had the pleasure of employing me. I’ve fallen out of love with being an employee. Meandering through life like a mountain stream.

I’m sitting here in the dark as the wind screeches around the flat. It’s nominally the last day of the year and I’m lit only by the glow of my laptop screen and the Technicolor spectacle that is our Christmas tree. It’s been a strange year, one spent mostly retreating from the world. One by one I’ve been losing my carefully created connections to the rest of humanity as I disappear into the cocoon I’ve created for myself. It took spending the days around Christmas down in Portsmouth for me to truly realise how far I have come. I didn’t understand more than a handful of the cultural reference made by people I interacted with. Like some antarctic explorer returned from a year on the ice or someone’s doddery old granddad I had to have the elements of contemporary culture explained to me. And all the while I only really wanted to get back to my books and my code. I tried getting drunk, but I found that distasteful. I’m not sure who, or what, I am anymore.

I miss Hong Kong.

For the second time this year I got to live in the city I love. And like the withdrawal symptoms of the finest of drugs, once I was ripped from its bosom I felt nothing but loss and desire to be returned there. But I cannot go. Not yet.

I must stay here and force myself back in to the world of work; not for any pressing financial need, you understand, but purely because I realise that if I don’t do something to cajole my mind into the reality of startups and deadlines and swift pints after work with smart people with beautiful ideas I will begin to rot and ever so slowly go mad, and once that road is taken it would be too much for me to come back from. Too much for anyone to drag me back from.

I worry.

Not for myself. I am past that petty vanity. I worry for those around me, as more and more of them surrender themselves to the base business of the propagation of the species. I worry for the ones left behind. I wonder if they are really ready for the loneliness that will be their life, the pitying looks they will receive, the eternal questions they will be asked and the lack of belief they will encounter daily when the say the don’t want that life. How their friends will begin to exclude them even as their bonds with other breeders grow ever stronger. It is a hard choice we make and the future is a harsh and brutal place.

And I guess this is what this year has really been about, hiding from the cruel reality. A year of cowardice. A year of fear. A year of retreat. Not my best, not by a long shot.

It’s a strange place to be in. From listening to the good Dr L’s adventures with the world of recruiters it would seem to be the case that most of the .NET coding jobs out there are either a) boring as hell or b) unable to match our current salaries unless I fancy selling my soul to a hedge fund. This has given me the idea of either making the leap and consider becoming a contractor or try to take one of the crazy (and recently, not so crazy) ideas I have and turn it into a business.

Both would be a big change from how I’ve been earning my crust but i’m more and more coming round to the idea that having a boss is one of the main causes of any unhappiness I experience. Being fully in control of my own destiny is something I very much want.

I look at other people I know making a go of it and realise that there’s no real reason not to try except inertia, and that’s a piss poor reason. I’ve been here nearly five years now- much too long. I need a kick up the pants.